Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
Then Peter and the [other] apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. This is the expression not of defiant rebellion, even in the best of causes, but of a constraint which they cannot but believe will have an echo in the breasts of their judges themselves, and an indirect protestation that nothing but the overpowering command of God Himself would have warranted or induced them to disobey the command of men placed lawfully in authority over them. (See the notes at Acts 4:19-20.)